Day 19 "Unconscious Gratitude"

Unconscious gratitude is when being grateful becomes a part of your identity. This does take a few weeks to become a part of us. Going beyond being thankful for family, friends and possessions we should learn to be grateful for all the things we normally take for granted. Such as breathing, the air we breathe, the birds we hear, your ability to walk, your ability to speak, the people you dislike in life, the seats you sit on - all of the things we normally don't pay attention to.

If we practice this every day for several weeks and do it regularly throughout the day we will have a shift in consciousness.

Day 18 "My Reality is not your Reality"

What we think determines what we get out of life. By changing our perception of the world we can change our reality. Steve told the story of the potato, how Fredrick the Great wanted to feed it to his people, but the peasants didn't want to eat them. Freddy had a field of potatoes planted in the royal field and posted a guard. When the peasants saw they were guarded their perception changed and they thought the potatoes were worth stealing. The guard was intentionally weak and once the peasants started eating the potatoes their perception was forever changed.

Day 17 "The Myth That is Happiness"

Today Steven talked about the emotion of happiness and how it is not a very long lasting emotion. We get a new car, computer or bigger house and the feeling of happiness doesn't last and we are on something else to make us happy.

He suggested that we should shift our focus from trying to be happy to trying to be content. Contentment is a much more controlled and mellow emotion that can be sustained for long periods of time. Whereas the things that might make us happy (car, computer, house) the emotion is short lived, the things that make us content might be knowing the family is safe, having a job I'm passionate about, spending time with family, etc. the emotion will last much longer.

Our exercise today asked us to list outcomes that would make us content and then score the outcome from 1 to 10.

• Spend time with Lori and Cody doing something we like
• Have a job that I can be passionate about and look forward to going to
  
• Working on speeches for TM and jokes for Stand-up
• Completing pens
• Get the Z car finished

Day 16 "Emotional Homeostasis"

Emotional homeostasis is an emotional balance.

Stairway to Emotional Mastery:

1. Recognize - recognize that you have the emotion
   
2. Name your emotion - Put a specific name to the emotion e.g. anger.
   
3. Accept responsibility - Know that it is you that is feeling the emotion and only you, you should not pass blame of the emotion on to anyone else.
   
4. Find another meaning - Ask yourself why you are feeling a particular way and if it might be something you are feeling deep down.
   
5. Accepting your emotions - Whatever you are feeling is never wrong. The actions you take because of the emotions may be wrong, but the emotion itself is never wrong.
   
6. Does the emotion teach you - Are you learning from the emotion or feeling? Your mind it trying to get you to pay attention for a reason.
   
7. Change your emotion - Try and change the emotion by changing the state.
   

Day 15 "Ask the Right Questions"

An example of asking the right questions is: If I want to lose 30 pounds, don't ask "how can I lose 30 pounds". Instead ask "how can I lose 2 pounds". Do this 15 times and you've lost the 30.

We can't solve problems with the same questions we asked when the problem was first created. We often ask ourselves the same question over and over again. Ask 5 different end questions to a problem you might be stuck with and start answering them all.

• How can I free up more time for myself
• How can I work smarter
• How can this process be improved
• How can I become more organized

Outcome: Advance to a higher position in Bresnan - trainer/instructor

Can outcome be broken down:
learn my technical assistance job well
Improve my teaching skills
Let me intentions be known

5 Questions
What can I do to improve my technical skills?
What can I do to improve my customer relations skills?
What can I do to improve my teaching skills?
What can I do to show my supervisor that I could excel in that position?
What other positions would I need to have first?
Are there any online course I could take?
Would I really like that position?

Day 14 "Catch Up Day"

Did I catch up the way I was supposed to? No! I am catching up now which is actually day 16.

Day 13 "Clearing Your Mind"'

Today we learned about clearing our minds. When you think of something that needs to be done you should write it down so you don't forget and, also, so you don't have to keep thinking about it. If it's an item that only takes a minute or so to complete, you should just do it. For example, replying to or sending an email, then you won't have to think of it again.

I am a huge procrastinator and forget things that need to be done. When I have them on my calendar or to do list it helps me a lot. I'd like to get into the habit of going over that list before I go to bed and when I get up in the morning.